Shelf Space - Reply to Sender

In the age of Wacko Jacko and his slumberland sleepovers, this is going to sound a little creepy at first: A 20-year-old Elvis Presley — a hillbilly with a funny-sounding name who's just beginning to get noticed on the country music scene — shares an extended, intimate correspondence with the straight-talking Achsa McEachern, a prodigal 14-year-old Atlanta girl who has skipped three grades in school and is racing toward a bright future in New York City's theater scene, even as her family slowly self-destructs.

Actually, even in 1955 some folks find it a little creepy, especially Achsa's Bible-binding father (I'm talking literally, he rebinds Bibles), who impotently forbids the relationship when he discovers it.

But Atlanta-raised author Diane Thomas — former entertainment editor at the Atlanta Constitution — has something sweeter and more sincere than scandal in mind for her debut, epistolary novel, The Year the Music Changed, written as a collection of letters published by a biographer of the fictional Achsa.

Achsa, who ends up being a more interesting character than the soon-to-be-King, and Elvis are brought together not by lust or star-struck adulation, but by a shared sense of great and noble destiny ... and a shared fear that they will mess it all up somehow. (Vegas Elvis, anyone?)

Though the correspondence between Elvis and Achsa can at times read just a little too precious, on the whole Thomas has nicely balanced the electrifying naïvete of the dreams of gifted youth with the inevitability that their actual accomplishments will fall short. She also resists the temptation to anesthetize the relationship between Achsa and Elvis — who really did have a thing for underage girls — allowing a blemish of notepaper transgression on what is otherwise a most tender and wholesome love.

Diane Thomas reads from The Year the Music Changed Thurs., Sept. 8, 6 p.m. (reception), 7 p.m. (lecture), at the Margaret Mitchell House, 990 Peachtree St. $8. 770-578-3502. www.gwtw.org. The Mountain Laurel Band will perform Elvis songs at the event. Book, $22.95. The Toby Press. 244 pages.